It would have been one of the worst losses in franchise history. It really would have. Blowing a 22-point 2nd-half lead in your own stadium against an injury-riddling two-win team?
The Eagles escaped with a 28-23 win over the Jaguars, but yikes … that was a little bit terrifying.
Here we go with our 10 Instant Observations.
1. With each chance the Eagles had to put this game away, you could just see the Jaguars growing more and more confident. When you’re up 22-0 you just can’t let that happen. You can’t let the other team think they have a chance. And the Eagles did exactly that. The two failed two-point conversions. Saquon Barkley’s fumble. The ridiculous failed 4th-and-inches near the end of the third quarter. All those Eagles mishaps gave the Jaguars life. Gave them hope. If you want to be a great team, you put teams away when you’re up 22 points, for crying out loud. Great that Nakobe Dean made a play and the Eagles escaped, but they never should have been in that position in the first place. They’ve got to learn from this and not put themselves in the same position again.
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2. Speaking of Nakobe Dean … wow. This kid is playing so well and to make that play with a minute and a half left and save the game – who knows, maybe save the season - is just the payoff for all the work he’s put in. The expectations were so high on Dean coming out of Georgia in 2022. Then he didn’t play as a rookie and got hurt last year and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect this year. He looked good in camp, but those first few weeks were not good ones. But, man, he has settled down and is just playing tremendous football and that interception was the product of an incredible amount of preparation and film study. He knew exactly what the Jaguars wanted to do there and he was ready for it and it was quite an athletic play as well for his first career interception. Kudos to the Eagles for sticking with Dean and good for Dean for never getting down on himself during a couple challenging seasons. Big-time play.
3. We’re really seeing some special play from Jalen Hurts, who keeps stacking clean, efficient and productive games together. He was brilliant Sunday, going 18-for-24 for 230 yards with two touchdown passes and for the fifth straight game no interceptions and fourth game with no turnovers. His 132.3 passer rating makes him the first Eagles quarterback ever with four straight games with a passer rating of 119 or higher. It was going to take some time with his fifth play caller in five seasons, but once things clicked with Kellen Moore, they clicked in a big way. Hurts is letting the game come to him just like he did in 2022 with Shane Steichen. He’s making quick decisions, he’s delivering the ball accurately, he’s not forcing anything, he’s throwing the deep ball spectacularly and he’s making plays with his legs again. Which is a product of being decisive and taking off and running before the defense is ready for it. And he just looks faster than he did at any point last year. That 18-yard touchdown run was his longest since a 22-yarder against the Bears in Week 15 of 2022. This team can go a long way with this Jalen Hurts.
4. That DeVonta Smith touchdown is one of the greatest catches I’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t just the one-handed stab in the back right corner of the end zone with Ronald Darby on solid coverage, it was also Smith somehow dragging both feet in bounds inches shy of the back of the end zone while making this spectacular one-handed catch. With A.J. Brown out of the game in the second half the Eagles needed Smith to come up huge and he did and it was incredible. That’s an impossible play just goofing around in the schoolyard with your friends. To do it in an NFL game? Mind-blowing.
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5. Hey, Howie … get Zach Baun a contract. Now! Geeze, what a find he’s been. Baun just gets better and better playing a position he’s never played before, and Sunday he was unreal. Player of the Week type stuff. 10 tackles, two pass breakups and that diving interception just before halftime that set up Saquon Barkley’s 19-yard TD. Baun has been playing well all year but this was next-level stuff. The Eagles gave him a one-year contract to play off-ball linebacker just based on a handful of snaps that Vic Fangio saw him play with the Saints. Which is crazy in itself. But he’s not just playing a new position, he’s playing out of his mind. That interception was a thing of beauty. He reacted the instant the ball bounced off Travis Etienne’s hands, dove fully outstretched and somehow got his hands under the ball and kept control. Baun has shown intelligence, instinct, toughness, playmaking, everything you want from an off-ball linebacker. The toughness of DeMeco Ryans and the athleticism of Mychal Kendricks. Heck of a combination. The Eagles can’t afford to lose him.
6A. Saquon Barkley just keeps delivering and it’s incredible to watch. He was banged-up and sore and beat up and just kept answering the bell to the tune of 159 rushing yards, 40 receiving yards, two more touchdowns. The fumble was bad – not sure it was really a fumble – but I love that Kellen Moore went back to Barkley as soon as the Eagles got the ball back and he never let up. Second half he carried 14 times for 98 yards. On the day the Eagles honored the greatest running back in Eagles history - LeSean McCoy – Barkley showed why he’s on pace to have the greatest season ever by an Eagles running back. The numbers are insane: He’s already got 925 rushing yards in half a season, 5.9 yards per carry, 1,071 scrimmage yards, eight touchdowns and we’ve got nine games to go. And great to see Barkley more involved in the pass game, too. Barkley caught 288 passes for 2,100 yards in six years with the Giants but was only 17-for-106 the first seven weeks here. I know he had that bad drop against Atlanta, but he’s a really good receiver and too good to be averaging 15 yards per game. He had season highs with three catches for 40 yards Sunday and that early touchdown. It’s mind-blowing how good he is.
6B. About Barkley’s fumble, it sure looked like Ventrell Miller hit Barkley’s ankle on his way to the ground, which means he’s down by contact and the ground caused the fumble. But it was a weird day all around for the replay booth. That first Eagles two-point conversion attempt, Hurts clearly had the ball across the plane. Weird day for the refs.
7. Young, fast, aggressive, physical, athletic. Five words nobody would have used to describe the Eagles’ defense last year. But here we are, and this re-worked unit, now rid of the dead weight and infused with youth and playmaking on every level, has quickly become a terrific young unit. They still have to do it consistently every week, but during this four-game winning streak the Eagles’ defense has played remarkably well. There’s nothing this group isn’t doing at an elite level. Stuffing the run. Covering at a consistently high level. Pressuring. Hitting. And now they’re even forcing turnovers – they have five takeaways the last two games after getting just seven in the previous 14 games. And you’re just seeing more and more every week from young guys like Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell, Nolan Smith, Nakobe Dean, Jalen Carter and even Zack Baun, who’s 27 but a rookie as an off-ball linebacker. They got a little leaky late Sunday but the bottom line is that they allowed 215 yards and 15 points Sunday and over the last four games they’re allowing 3.6 yards per rushing attempt, 141 passing yards per game, 215 total yards per game and just 45 points - that's 11.3 per game. That's remarkable. This is only the third time since 1998 they've held four straight teams to 280 or fewer yards. To go from what we saw last year to this? Incredible. And they’re only going to get better.
8. I don’t talk enough about Josh Sweat, but he’s back playing at a Pro Bowl level, and it’s great to see. Sweat had two more sacks Sunday along with three quarterback hits, two tackles for loss and even a pass knockdown. In the last five games, he’s got five sacks, five tackles for loss and seven QB hits. This is the Josh Sweat who made the Pro Bowl in 2021 and had 11 sacks in 2022. When you watch him play like this, it’s hard to imagine that he just went 12 straight games without a sack from Week 11 last year up through Week 3 this year. But he’s back to playing the way we’re used to, and another interesting decision for Howie Roseman. Sweat’s not signed beyond this year and he’s still only 27. Probably a good idea to keep him around a few more years.
9. Looking ahead to next week, the Eagles go down to Dallas, where they’ve lost six straight games, four of them by 20 or more points. Last time they had a longer losing streak in North Texas was 1966 through 1978, when they lost 13 in a row. This is not a good Cowboys team. They’re 3-4 and 0-3 at home and they’ve lost three straight to the Lions, 49ers and Falcons. They’re dealing with a ton of injuries and the bottom line is it's time for the Eagles to win in Dallas, something they haven’t done since the 2017 championship season. The Eagles are the better team in every phase. Every phase. This isn’t the Cowboys team that went 36-15 the last three years. The Eagles have shown they can win on the road – 4-1 away from the Linc, including the São Paulo game – and this is a game they need to win. The Cowboys have embarrassed the Eagles lately. The Eagles are just 9-15 the last 12 years and 2-4 under Nick Sirianni. It’s time to put that to rest. Time to go down there and kick their butts.
10. I give Jahan Dotson so much credit. I can’t imagine the pressure he was feeling after the Eagles traded a 3rd-round pick to Washington for him in August and all he had to show for his first seven games was 35 yards. But you can tell the kid is a class act. He never got down on himself, he never complained that he wasn’t getting enough targets, he never blamed anybody else for his lack of production. And when A.J. Brown had to leave the game early in the third quarter, Dotson showed up with a circus catch for 36 yards – more yards on one catch than he had in his first 7 ½ games as an Eagle. Dotson showed tremendous focus and concentration, securing the ball after it bounced off cornerback Tyson Campbell and then fighting for a few extra yards. Huge play at a big moment. Dotson was talented enough to be the 16th pick in the draft just two years ago, and he’s signed through 2025 so he’ll be around at least another year. Plays like the one he made Sunday only give Kellen Moore and Jalen Hurts more trust in Dotson, and I’d expect to see more big plays from Dotson the second half of the season. They’re going to need it.
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